Whatever else I may think about Blizzard, the first time I see the cinematics for one of their games, I’m always most impressed. Even back with Warcraft II, I remember thinking, “Surely, this is the height of computer game cinematics!”

@JackShandy: yeah.
Compare It to the Diablo 2 cinematics and It just plain sucks.
We’re already seen how much they care about a good writing and narration with the disgusting work they did on Starcraft 2, this will be the same.
One more reason to not buy It, at least for me.

The thing I have with the Diablo universe is how crap the ‘good’ side is. Last game had the angels doing pretty much fuck all, and where are the gods in all this? Where’s anybody except for a single adventurer in fact?

If I was born into the Diablo world then as soon as my infant hands could the means I’d leave it. Shit ain’t worth it.

Pretty sure that’s down to some holy code of ‘not interfering with mortal affairs’ or some such. Tyriel is basically breaking all the rules by getting involved with the Horadrim and the heroes. And look where THAT got us….twice (or thrice…). I think the Diablo world would be better off if he could just leave things alone.

Yeah well you apparently care at least as much as I do right now about Diablo 3 e.g. I couldn’t even be bothered to click the “Play”-button on the video up there. Blizzard can go hump someone else instead with their DRM and Monetization schemes xD

I do honestly want to see more about Torchlight 2 though, the last proper vidyas they released date back like about one year now and apparently it’s to come out December 13th if their German/Austrian/Swedish publishing partner is to be believed: link to gamersglobal.de

Actually Starky, I a lot of people do care and want to see more Torchlight 2 coverage by the media, it’s almost as if it’s makers are not as much into PR shilling as Actilizzard is, or maybe they don’t have the millions to do it, nevertheless it should prove to be a better game overall, and one that I can play when I want and where I want.

Guys, the RPS chaps did actually put a post up specifically asking you not to post in a thread saying you have no interest in the topic. Just sayin’. How bout you direct your input to say, a Torchlight 2 thread somewhere?

Bringing up Torchlight 2 in a Diablo 3 advertisement-post (as in “here’s a new ad for the game”) is EXACTLY what should happen.
Lots of times have I been reminded here on RPS of some lesser but better game, due to the advertisement efforts of bigger, emptier games.
The “if you have no interest” rule is not to stifle this behaviour, but to prevent people just writing “meh”.

Well this was somewhat disappointing… Where’s the mystery? “You released me and now my army will march and destroy the world! Look at how evil I am!!!” And waht’s with the young girl? Why not an old, wise man? A bit cliché, no?

I’m not sure if a Diablo cinematic really needs a sense of mystery?
I imagine this gets shown to the player quite early on in the game to establish the story: Demons are bad, big demon is extra bad, and he wants the McGuffin.
Sets the scene for a dozen hours of killing demons and chasing around after the McGuffin.

Is a young woman researching late into the night cliché? I’d have thought an old man doing it would be more clichéd. Anything that Gandalf did is automatically fantasy cliché.
Incidentally I don’t think she released Azmodan (after all he wants the stone on the table where she’s sat), instead he’s projecting that message to her. The big bad outlining their plan to their enemy like that most certainly is cliché.

Yeah, I added the “young girl” bit as an afterthought. I meant to only really refer to the “bad man outlining evil plan” bit.

Perhaps I’m jumping to conclusions. The plot might revolve around the young girl trying to warn the rest of the world where nobody wants to hear her story (“young girls are so ignorant, she probably had a nightmare”) so she has to do all the daemon killing herself and the big bad guy (Who is he anyway?) to save the world.

Or is that cliché too? Damn, I can see why it’s so hard to write an original story.

Diablo 1 had a plot? I mustn’t have gotten that far. Seriously, though – Blizzard games could be made so much more interesting with some decent writers. Their animation is up to the standard of Pixar, but their writing sure ain’t.

Comparing the amount of spoken dialogue in Amun’s video (the Diablo 1 intro) vs. this new Diablo 3 cinematic is interesting. And yeah, if this was done by Pixar, the big demon would have paused and said, “you almost got me monologuing.”

♥ Blizzard’s cinematics team. But how far we’ve come. The company has unquestionably embraced the summer blockbuster at this point.

Diablo’s whole plot is “Nasty demons try and take over the world”, hell (hurr), that could be shortened to “Bad guys try to take over the world”. It’s not original, but its the same plot that’s been used for some brilliant games/films/books. Diablo has never been one for overt plot, but if you look a little deeper there’s usually a fair bit, or at least there was in the first (not having played the 2nd, to my shame).

I think of this trailer as introducing the Demon this game will focus on and the introduction of Cain’s niece (for those that missed the reference). Cain, as those that have been following the snippets that have been release will know, dies in this game, and poor Mary Sue here takes over his job. It also shows that she has a vision while attempting to gleam some insight and looking at that stone (I assume a soul stone?). Whether this is the stone or her, or both, we don’t know, or I don’t either way, but it is an interesting fact.

No, it seems pretty straightforward if you’ve at least played the first two games, or even just Diablo 2, really.

Azmodan is a big evil demon who didn’t fall into the same trap of being killed that most of the other greater evils did, and now reckons he’s gonna send his own hellborn army in the world to claim his place at the top. That basically covers it, I think.

Please don’t jump to such ridiculous conclusions
Blizzard said themselves that they edited out bits of it so that they weren’t spoiling the plot, and why you’d assume it had something to do with novels at all baffles me

In Diablo 1 they talk about Hell being taken over by a popular uprising led by two demons, Belial and Azmodan before the series started. They kick the Three out into the mortal world, which causes all the nonsense in the first place. Apparently Azmodan is now looking for the almighty Mcguffin, which is so full of plotdevicium particles that it can alter the world.

That’s not polite at all. Also the writing was nowhere near absolute fucking shit. If you’d like to know about true absolute fucking shit writing then let me expose to you to the productions of my near-hobo drug-using chain-smoking trash culture-worshiping friend (we all know one) who spends his time smoking various substances and writing works of fiction so vile it will shatter all your perceptions about absolute fucking shit writing.

Blizzard isn’t so much with the terribly inventive narrative. They make great games, but if you’re looking for a story filled with subtleties and all sorts of stuff that defies cliché, look somewhere else.

Ew.. nipple rings? I think someone was punished for being uppity in the past and is trying to get the last laugh. Seriously, I can imagine that demon being the runt of the litter. Or a lackey of some sort.

Clearly he is overcompensating because the other demons picked on him because he is fat. Now he is desperately trying to be cool, going for nipple rings and long winded explanations of his evil plans. In fact, his self-esteem is so low, he needs to pick on the poor mortals to feel like a man. All he really needs is a hug.

I suppose the target audience of this clip are WoW players, who never, ever played a Diablo game before. If not, well. It fails.

It’s strange, but I find myself more excited about Skyrim than D3 at this point. And Blizzard starts to be too “mainstreamy” for my taste. Seems like the already simple and naive story of the series just got even more.. flat.

It’s nice to see that Blizzard can still put together a damned pretty cinematic. Maybe they should go into making films, it’s not as if they’re producing anything interesting on the game side of things anymore.

I should clarify that when I say “not interesting” I mean “not interesting to me.” I played all of 2 hours of WoW before it bored me to death, and my experience with Starcraft 2 was similar (a friend bought it for me or I wouldn’t even have bothered, the interface alone is reason enough for a micro-hater like me to steer clear). I won’t be buying Diablo 3 at all (and think I’ve talked the relevant friend out of it, based on his own experience with Starcraft 2) and I’m having a hard time seeing how Blizzard would ever go back to making games I find interesting. They’re steadily doing something, but I wouldn’t call it “improving.”

Leah is the adopted daughter of Deckard Cain and she didn’t awaken anything, the invasion has been inevitable since Tyrael destroyed the Worldstone at the end of D2:LoD.

Also remember that this cinematic isn’t meant to explain anything, it’s taken from within the game and whatever context it had there and has then been edited to remove spoilers. It’s purely to show off some pretty demons.

how these demons from their high thrones can pester a little girly sobbing scribe is just diabolical! nice trailer nonetheless, I love the dust and movement of the throned demons awakening. nothing original, but, then again, it is Diablo.

Anyone else see “Azmodan” and just start giggling? As a kid playing the first Diablo, I read the texts mentioning Azmodan and Belial and always wondered what became of them while playing Diablo 2. I was afraid the Big Bad of Diablo 3 would be the angels, or some demon general. I don’t care how much criticism the series may get for lacking story (YMMV), it’s very well told (if you stop murdering mook monsters long enough to chat with some folks) and judging by this, that trend will continue.

Was that a pitlord from WoW? They could have been a little more creative in demon design. Hell, just crib off the Sandman if you want unique demons. I think parents groups would get angry about the baby with the snake umbilical cord.

@Casimir You should give the books a read. The world they are on is actually a pocket world created as a personal playground for a group of renegade angels and demons and all humans are descendants of the original line of nephalym crossbreeds. There’s actually a lot of lore behind it.

I just can’t figure out who the 3rd evil they showed is. To my knowledge only two are left alive, that big boy and Belial. The rest should be ‘dead’.

I’m digging Azmodan’s design but I agree about the trite nature of the speech. Diablo isn’t high literature but it’s capable of more. The Baal and Marius scenes from D2 were very well done (although a big part of that was the voice acting I suppose). It feels like you could cut out half of what Azmo is saying and the end result would work far better. It’s nice to speculate about some of the things like the black soulstone and the demons in those chairs though. I am interested in the story despite Blizzard’s best efforts to dissuade me with that terrible speech.

Still hate Leah’s design however. The stupid modern stylish hair and the those bloody nails irk me to no end. Trying too hard to be cute and/or sexy and it just isn’t.

I’m sorry, I have to say it: the second the big demon showed up, I could feel Tolkien rolling in his grave over and over again. Blizz still knows how to do epic cinematics, to the extent that even someone like me with zero interest in any of their games still loves watching them, but… This cutscene’s story is so ridiculously taken from Tolkien it’s not even funny. The demon looks like a Balrog crossed with Sauron, there’s Mt. Doom in the background, the army looks a lot like Mr Fiery Eye’s one and he’s going out of his way to find the One True Thing.